Pulp Fiction Novels and Books

Pulp novels and pulp books were viewed under a completely new light after the success of Quentin Tarantino's movie 'Pulp Fiction,' which drew heavily from this genre. The question remains, however, what is pulp? Technically speaking, it is the actual material which the magazines were made of. In a classic example of synecdoche, the name of the material is used to refer to the whole genre. In the beginning, these magazines were not unlike comic books, due to their themes of adventure and horror, they were basically escapism literature. In addition to that, the manufacturing material was so cheap that it allowed for extremely low prices. There was a lot more to it though, as you are about to find out here on Pulprack.com.

The price and subject matter of pulp novels should not fool the reader, as a matter of fact, many well respected authors found themselves writing for pulp fiction novels at one point or another, including Isaac Asimov (I, Robot), Robert Bloch (Psycho), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), William S. Burroughs (Junkie), Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey), Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim), Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage), Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Dashiel Hammett (The Maltese Falcon), Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book), H.P. Lovecraft, Jack London (The Call of the Wild), Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds), and Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), among many others. At their pulp stage, some might be considered romance writers, in the tradition of chivalry and heroism of romance novels such as Le Morte D'Arthur.

As was mentioned before, pulp novels and books did not originally exists in the form of books and novels per se, but as a collection of stories put together in a magazine. Some of these magazines were Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, Astonishing Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Fantastic Adventures, Fantastic Story Magazine, Fantasy, Future Science Fiction, Planet Stories, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Quarterly, Startling Stories, Super Science Stories, Tales of Wonder, Uncanny Tales and Wonder Stories.

However, in the proper sense of the word novels have come to exist. For instance, poet and writer Charles Bukowski was not known as an author, but he did write one precisely called Pulp, which dealt with his usual themes of alienation and loneliness, but also included the usual tropes of the genre. Other good examples of these novels are the Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler respectively. Both featured two iconic detectives, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Even though these novels are usually scorned as low brow reading material, the fact is that pulp fiction novels have enjoyed massive popularity since their inception. You can learn more about them here on pulprack.com, a source of free information on pulp novels.

A very appealing and important part of these novels are the pulp covers. These pictures are made by different artists to express the main topic of the story and work as a visual aid for the readers to get a little bit closer and more identified with the characters of the story. In fact, in a metaphoric way, the illustration on the cover was the of the pulp novel as it worked to raise the interest on this type of novel.